Sunday, June 17, 2007

i hate viral advertising





Kooky: Halo 3 Viral Marketing Campaign Begins; Everyone Confused - Kotaku



the link above is kotaku linking to some other site that has photos etc about apparently a viral marketing ad campaign for halo3.



I hate viral ad campaigns. after their last one failed so horribly, i doubt sony will be trying them again any time soon. google "all i want for xmas is a psp" for some stories about that one, apparently the url (www.alliwantforxmasisapsp.com) now links to haagen daas ice cream. go figure.



In any case, viral ad campaigns, particularly of the sony variety, rely on duping would be consumers into believe they are authentic. as a result they're fundamental insulting the group of people they're advertising to. someone must think they're smarter than i am if they think they'll be able to trick me into believing that some schmuck is gonna start a blog completely dedicated to how he wants a psp for christmas. you could make enough money to buy one in half the time required to set up a polished blog. nevermind registering the domain name, site hosting, all that shit costs money.. the whole premise was utterly stupid, and you were supposed to believe it was genuine, which would make you even more stupid. there you go, thats a great way to get me to want to buy your product, calling me an idiot. the only thing they succeeded in doing was pissing a lot of people off.





so i don't really know what the halo3 people hope to accomplish with this one. they want you to go to this site: www.societyoftheancients.com. its clearly designed to make it look like it was the second of third page on the internet (i mean only 12 year old girls think flashing backgrounds like that are a good idea). they offer no way of contacting the "society", other than joining a mail list. great. cause i love signing up to recieve emails about god knows what from people of have as yet not identified themselves. its a thinly veiled hoax. and with a completely stupid premise.



i mean i just don't get it... no rational person is going to follow the "logic" they propose:

1) we don't know how or why they build stonehenge

2) therefore, the "simplest" explanation is that they had help

3) who could have helped them but technologically advanced aliens?



what?? i mean they actually invoke Occam's razor in their "argument". how does that work... since in order for aliens to be the simplest explanation to stonehenge or the pyramids, you have to explain where the fucking aliens came from and how they got here. thats a whole lot more fucking difficult.



so what's the point? i mean clearly this isnt meant to be taken seriously? how is it going to get anyone to buy halo3 who wasn't already going to? if it isn't, why the hell are they paying people to stand around times square and annoy passersby with this horse shit?



i just dont get it, and it bothers me. because i pride myself on my intelligence, and even the implication that they think i might fall for this shit is insulting.





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4 comments:

Adrian said...

Hmm. My first reaction to viral ad stuff is "that is more amusing than slamming me with pop-ups and paying retarded celebrities too much money to do an ad." But yeah I guess if they think that people actually will believe their campaign, like that stupid PSP blog, then it's insulting. Maybe we should distinguish between honest viral advertising and dishonest viral advertising. Cuz the burger kind chicken ad campaign was pretty funny (it fenced!).

Pat said...

burger king chicken ad? mr i neve make typos?

i guess some of it is ok. ATHF did some with the mooninites i thihnk, just pictures of them in random ass places. but unless you already know about ATHF you won't have any idea what you're looking at.

i dunno, i just prefer honest, open advertising. "this is our product, this is why we think you should buy it." if you can do that and package it up in a funny way, you win my vote. geico has had several ad campaigns in the recent future that i've liked...

Pat said...

ad campaings in the recent future! not to be confused with the soon-to-come past! clearly past my bedtime

Adrian said...

Yeah I heard about the mooninites thing when my entire fucking city went apeshit over it.

And at least I mess up letters, not whole words or tenses. sucka with a comp lit dee-gree!